* Calls for use of experimental drugs in worst Ebola
outbreak
(Adds reaction on streets of Monrovia)

By Umaru Fofana and Clair MacDougall

FREETOWN/MONROVIA, Aug 7 The army blockaded
rural areas hit by the deadly Ebola virus in Sierra Leone on
Thursday, a senior officer said, after neighbouring Liberia
declared a state of emergency to tackle the worst outbreak of
the disease, which has killed 932 people.

Worried Liberians queued at banks and stocked up on food in
markets in the ramshackle capital Monrovia while others took
buses to unaffected parts of the West African country after
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf announced the powers lasting for
90 days late on Wednesday.

The state of emergency allows Liberia's government to
curtail civil rights and to deploy troops and police to impose
quarantines on badly affected communities to try to contain an
epidemic that has struck four west African nations.

"Everyone is afraid this morning," civil servant Cephus
Togba told Reuters by telephone. "Big and small they are all
panicking. Everyone is stocking up the little they have."

With troops setting up checkpoints outside Monrovia on the
way to some of the worst-hit towns, Johnson Sirleaf justified
the measures by saying the state of emergency was necessary for
"the very survival of our state and for the protection of the
lives of our people".

In Geneva, World Health Organization (WHO) experts were due
to hold a second day of meetings to agree on emergency measures
to tackle the highly contagious virus and whether to declare an
international public health emergency.

After a trial drug based on the tobacco plant was
administered to two U.S. charity workers infected in Liberia,
Ebola specialists have urged the WHO to offer Africans the
chance to take such experimental drugs. The U.N. agency has
asked medical ethics experts to explore this option next week.

Many in Liberia - a nation founded by the descendants of
freed American slaves, whose capital is named after former U.S.
President James Monroe - look to the United States in time of
crisis, as the country did during a brutal 1989-2003 civil war
that killed nearly a quarter of a million people.

"We need help from America. We need help," said Nancy Poure,
a small trader in the suburb of Johnsonville. "This is the
beginning of hardship. Ninety days of fear and suffering."

Among the most deadly diseases, Ebola kills up to 90 percent
of those infected, causing internal and external bleeding,
diarrhoea and vomiting in its final stages. Discovered in
Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976, near the Ebola river, it
is believed to have been carried to the west of the continent by
fruit bats, which are eaten as a delicacy in the region.

FEARS FOR LAGOS

Though most cases are in the remote border area of Guinea,
Sierra Leone and Liberia, alarm over Ebola's spread grew last
month when a U.S. citizen died in Nigeria of the virus after
arriving from the region.

A nurse who treated Patrick Sawyer has now also died in
Lagos and at least five other people have been isolated with
symptoms, raising fears of an outbreak in the city of 21 million
people, Africa's largest metropolis.

In Saudi Arabia, a man suspected of contracting Ebola during
a recent business trip to Sierra Leone also died on Wednesday in
Jeddah. Major airlines, such as British Airways
and Emirates, have halted flights to
affected countries, while many expatriates are leaving.

In eastern Sierra Leone - the worst-hit area of the country
- the police chief said security forces deployed last night "to
establish a complete blockade" of Kenema and Kailahun districts,
setting up 16 checkpoints on major roads.

"No vehicles or persons are allowed into or out of the
districts," Alfred Karrow-Kamara told Reuters, saying the
measures would last for an initial 50-day period.

Traders who had registered with security agencies would be
able to bring in food and medicines. Security forces would mount
foot patrols to ensure civilians did not slip past their
road-blocks through the bush.

HOSPITAL CLOSED, DOCTORS FLEE

In Liberia, where the death toll is rising fastest,
authorities on Wednesday shut a Monrovia hospital after its
Cameroonian director died of Ebola and six other staff tested
positive, including two nuns and a 75-year-old Spanish priest.

Miguel Pajares, the first European infected, was in a stable
condition in a Madrid hospital after being repatriated with his
co-worker, nun Juliana Bohi, on Thursday. The two were escorted
by police out-riders on their arrival in Madrid to the Carlos
III hospital, which cleared its entire sixth floor for their
treatment.

The Liberian military deployment - Operation White Shield -
is expected to be fully in place by Friday, officials said.
In the chaotic, ocean-front capital, residents greeted the
announcement with fear and concern, though the precise details
of the emergency powers have not yet been made public.

Liberian authorities have said they are willing to authorise
in-country clinical trials of experimental drugs. However, U.S.
President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he lacked enough
information to approve their use, adding that Ebola could be
controlled with a strong public health response.

Lacking the medical equipment and training to handle the new
disease, some 32 health workers had already died of Ebola in
Liberia and many sick people were going untreated after doctors
deserted their posts, Johnson Sirleaf said.

The outbreak is costing its war-scarred economy millions of
dollars as airlines cancel flights. Schools across the country
were shut last week and non-essential government workers sent
home.

Ebola has now been reported in eight of Liberia's 15
counties and the only two treatment centres -- in northern Lofa
County and Montserrado County near Monrovia -- are unable to
cope. In other areas, patients are simply being kept in
improvised holding centres, aid workers say.
(Additional reporting by Daniel Flynn in Dakar and Alphonso
Toweh in Washington; Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Peter
Millership)

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